Demonic – A Fairly Standard Possession Film with a Sci-Fi Twist – Film Review

Posted on October 21, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Neill Blomkamp

Writer: Neill Blomkamp

Starring: Carly Pope, Chris William Martin, Michael J. Rogers, Nathalie Boltt, Terry Chen, and Kandyse McClure

Rating: ★★½

It’s been six years since Neill Blomkamp’s criminally underrated Chappie. After a few announced and shelved projects, including new Alien and Robocop films, Blomkamp has returned with Demonic a horror film with his signature sci-fi twist.

Carly (Carly Pope) hasn’t spoken to her mother in years. An old friend, Martin (Chris William Martin) finds her and tells Carly that her mother has fallen into a coma and been taken to a new facility. He urges her to go and see her, as the facility has been looking for her. Hesitantly, Carly visits her mother and finds that through new advanced technology she can connect with the active parts of her brain to communicate with her mother. It’s through this that Carly discovers that an incident in her past is more complicated than she had previously thought.

At its core Demonic is a standard possession film. It follows a template that is very familiar to most horror fans. If you’ve seen something like Insidious, then there are no real surprises with Demonic. The parts where Carly goes into the dream world with her mother to communicate are really interesting. Sadly, there isn’t enough of this, and the idea isn’t explored enough. Her mother is possessed, and it would have been fascinating and scary to see more of her possessed mind, instead what we get is brief moments that don’t really do anything. The visuals during these sequences are really great, with an unnerving quality. Everything is slightly distorted and creepy.

There is also a moment around half way through the film where Carly’s best friend Sam (Kandyse McClure) visits her at night. It’s a loud and scary moment in the film, with contortion, masks, and a genuine sense of dread. It’s such a great scene, and nothing that comes after lives up to it. It’s the only part of the film that makes you feel like you’re watching a true horror film.

The biggest disappointment about the film is the characters. They’re all bland and uninteresting so you just don’t care what happens to them. Carly is the main character, appearing in almost every moment and we witness the film from her perspective, but by the end she still doesn’t feel like a character. There’s just no development or depth beyond Carly has to be here for there to be a plot.

The rest of the characters feel equally unengaging. Martin, who Carly cut out of her life years before, chastises her for it. He mentions how she cut him out, wouldn’t listen, and called him ‘clinically insane’ because of his fascination with possession and believing there was more behind the incident with Carly’s mother. Carly just apologises, asks him to tell her again, and that’s it, all wounds are healed so the plot can move forward.

All together Demonic is okay. It follows a very similar path that most possession films have before. It has some interesting ideas, that aren’t explored enough. The characters are bland and not developed. There are some creepy and unsettling moments, but it’s never unhinged enough to be truly scary. The film is really not worth seeking out, but if you happen to find it, there are worse films out there.

Signature Entertainment’s Demonic on Digital Platforms 22nd October and Blu-ray & DVD 25th October

Apple TV: https://tv.apple.com/gb/movie/demonic/umc.cmc.6dc8m0mkm85tj4rtb2d58evgo

Amazon DVD: ​​https://amzn.to/3CxeiPn

Amazon Blu-ray: https://amzn.to/3CA5jNw

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Only Murders in the Building – Season One Review

Posted on October 21, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

Created by: Steve Martin and John Hoffman

Starring: Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Aaron Dominguez, and Amy Ryan

Rating: ★★★★

Comedy legend Steve Martin has turned to TV in Only Murders in the Building, which he co-created and stars in. Frequent collaborator Martin Short and Selena Gomez join him to create the main cast of the comedy mystery. The first season has just finished airing on Hulu/Disney+, with a second season already confirmed that can’t come soon enough.

The set up is simple, all three characters live in the Arconia, an apartment building in New York. They don’t know each other, other than random meetings in elevators, but they all have one thing in common; an obsession with true-crime podcasts. After one of their neighbours dies, they start to investigate the death as a possible murder and start their own podcast, named Only Murders in the Building. After receiving threats, urging them to stop the podcast, they realise they are on to something big.

This show is like a warm blanket, right from the start of episode one. We’re in safe hands with Martin and Short, and this is just another example of how well they work off each other. Adding Selena Gomez into the mix and you have three great characters. Once the show sets up their backstory in the opening episode it’s off to a running start. The show is funny and genuinely engaging as a murder mystery. You’ll be guessing who it is right up to the big reveal. While not every joke lands, more than enough do and there’s an upbeat energy throughout that keeps it gripping and easy to watch. The perfect remedy to a long day at work and with each episode being half an hour each, the perfect length as well. Although now that the season is over, you’ll want to binge watch it as quickly as possible.

The mystery is simple, one of the neighbours, who everyone in the building seemed to have a problem with, is murdered. It could be anyone, and the police think its a suicide. There are so many twists and turns throughout, with little clues dotted throughout about who the killer actually is. One of the things the show does really well is plant little seeds that will niggle away at you, and will always go back to it. Questions are raised and you get enough answers that you never feel cheated.

Every episode is great, that will give you more of the mystery, while also just being great entertainment. The show is self-aware with an entire episode spent investigating musician Sting, and then mentioning later about how it couldn’t have been him and it was an episode without stakes (referencing the podcast episode). Little nods to the audience, with a blend of magical realism scattered throughout make this feel like Pushing Daisies or Jane the Virgin. Like those shows, each episode feels like a real treat.

The cast are all fantastic. The main three work perfectly together, and joining them is a great supporting cast filled with fantastic guest starts and recurring characters including Sting, Tina Fey, Nathan Lane, Jimmy Fallon and Jane Lynch. All of the people living in the building are quirky and strange in their own right.

There aren’t many shows that work as both a comedy, with plenty of laugh out loud moments, and a good mystery that will keep you guessing. Only Murders in the Building works as both with great ease. It’s great to see Steve Martin in a show and we can only hope that season two lives up the cliff-hanger we’re left with at the end of the excellent season finale.

Only Murders in the Building – Season One is available now on Hulu and Disney+

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Night Teeth – A Dull and Boring Vampire Story – Film Review

Posted on October 20, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Adam Randall

Writer: Brent Dillon

Starring: Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Debby Ryan, Megan Fox, Lucy Fry, Alfie Allen, Raúl Castillo, and Alexander Ludwig

Rating: ★★

The history of films is filled with vampire stories, from Nosferatu to Twilight and everything In between. It’s a genre that will never die, literally. Night Teeth is the latest vampire film, released on Netflix. It’s a by-the-numbers story that doesn’t really do anything interesting and is destined to be lost in the endless scroll of Netflix’s seemingly endless content lists.

Benny (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) is a chauffeur working unsuspectedly for two vampires. He drives them to their destination and starts to get a little too nosey about who they are. Finding out his passengers are vampires; he is dragged into a conflict that has lasted generations. A truce between humans and vampires has been broken and Benny has to stay close to his passengers to survive.

This is a gorgeous film. The cinematography by Ebon Bolter is simply stunning. It looks incredibly stylish, with bright bold colours and great shots. There’s a scene early on with a car driving through a field of red flowers, with the contrasting with everything else on screen. It’s artistic and looks incredible. You could take a shot from that sequence and frame it.

Sadly, that’s where the good things dry up for Night Teeth. The story is incredibly dull and sloppy. It’s predictable and feels like things you’ve seen before. The story moves at a snail’s pace, dragging it out with pointless padding and is as stretched out as much as possible. It has good ideas, like the John Wick style hotel that the two vampires visit, complete with a medallion that is used to identify yourself, but nothing is done with it. The world isn’t interesting enough and the story doesn’t inject anything new into the vampire genre. It meanders along until it’s over and that’s about it.

The acting is all over the place. It’s not horrendous at any point, but there’s no great performances here. Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones) just isn’t believable as some kind of vampire mob boss. He’s not menacing at all. Debby Ryan (Muppets Most Wanted) delivers some incredibly unnatural dialogue that just sounds bad. The characters fall flat and it’s hard to be invested in them. Megan Fox is credited, but her role is a glorified cameo.

It’s not clear what type of film Night Teeth is trying to be. It’s a vampire film, with lots of blood and a fair bit of violence, but it’s not a horror film. The action isn’t entertaining, the fighting feels shallow, and the effects are shoddy, so it doesn’t work as an action film. It’s best compared to a crime film, with rival families. Whatever it’s trying to be, it just doesn’t work.

Night Teeth is best to be avoided. It looks stylish, but beyond that there’s nothing to make it worth watching. The story is boring, the characters are lifeless (pun intended) and the whole thing just crawls along until it dies.  

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Updates and Something a Little Different

Posted on October 20, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

Hi everyone. I’m a little late with my weekly update, but I hadn’t forgot. I have plans for something a little different for tomorrow morning’s post. I’m going to be reviewing a TV series, not Squid Game (haven’t gotten around to it just yet). I haven’t written a review for TV yet, so I thought it would be a challenge. I don’t watch as much TV as I used to, so this is the only new show I’ve seen this year.

Next week on Thursday will be a new Franchise Catch Up, but this time with a little twist. I’m going to be binge-watching all of the Halloween films. I’ve seen about half of them before, but it’s about time to watch all of them. I’m going to be ranking them at the end as well. The original Halloween is one of my favourite films, and I’ve just stayed away from the ones that John Carpenter had nothing to do with.

Being back at home, instead of having to travel to mum’s house for work, has been a really nice change for the last week. I’ve had more time to watch things and read. It’s amazing how much more free time I get when not travelling for work. Also easier with preparing lunch and chores.

I’ll be reviewing the new Netflix film later today, Night Teeth. I’ve also got a review for Demonic for tomorrow. Haven’t decided what I’ll be reviewing for Friday, but I have tomorrow off to figure that one out. I have a couple of reviews written and ready. I like to be ahead in case anything happens that stops me from getting something written.

There’s not much to update, but I hope everyone’s having a good week. Thank you for reading and until next time,

Ashley

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Bigfoot Hunters – Film Review

Posted on October 19, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Zach Lamplugh

Writer: Brian Emond and Zach Lamplugh

Starring: Brian Emond, Jeffrey Stephenson, Zach Lamplugh, Derick Marchel, Dexter Fugerson, Jenna Kannell, Sarah Hitzel, and Joe Karg

Rating ★★★½

Bigfoot Hunters is the directorial debut from Zach Lamplugh. It’s a satirical mockumentary about the state of journalism in the clickbait era of online news. It mimics the style of Vice, which co-writer and star Brian Emond appeared on once. Producer Tim Reis also worked for Vice, which is how the film is able to mimic the style so accurately.

Brian (Briand Emond) and his producer Zach (Zach Lamplugh) are sent to make a documentary about Bigfoot hunters. Brian, who was recently passed over for a serious news job, is fed up with the clickbait videos that he makes. His lack of effort shows and it’s causing tension between him and Zach. Reluctantly, Brian agrees to make the documentary and after a few strange occurrences he starts to believe that they may actually be onto something.

Bigfoot Hunters is made in the style of a found-footage horror film. Three men go into the woods in search for Bigfoot and end up getting in way over their head. While there is some violence and death at points, it isn’t a horror film. This is a full-on comedy and while it’s not the funniest film ever (it’s not even the funniest mockumentary of this year, that honour goes to When the Screaming Starts), there is more than enough comedy and fun here. Thankfully it also side-steps the issue that most found-footage films have and doesn’t have too much shaky-cam.

The best thing about the film is the characters. Brian looks the part of a hipster clickbait journalist and his friendship with Zach is interesting. The moments that show them as true friends, often when mocking their guide Jeff (Jeffrey Stephenson), are the highlights of the film. Jeff is also a great character. He is a renowned Bigfoot hunter, who managed to capture some footage that led to book deals and fame. It also resulted in the end of his relationship, with even his mum thinking he sucks. He’s a loner and the way he just takes the mocking Brian gives out is really funny.

Like most films in the genre, the camera is rolling at all times. They make light of it, with Brian sarcastically commenting on how Zach has to be filming at all times, including getting b-roll of him waking up. There are also some moments where other people pick up the camera to keep the story rolling. It’s done really well and never feels contrived. It’s also one of the funniest moments in the film where someone picks up the camera and gives a tour of their life.

Bigfoot Hunters is a great little film. It’s nothing fancy and there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before. It’s still funny and the characters are great. It’s pure escapism and that’s all you can ask for with a documentary about hunting Bigfoot.  

Bigfoot Hunters is in cinemas 22 October and on digital 25 October from Fractured Visions

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